America's Largest Private Companies

Closely held companies, insulated from the disposition of public investors, are still subject to the pains of a weakened economy. Take the 223 private companies, which qualified for our list as the largest in America, as evidence. Altogether they sold $1.34 trillion in goods and services, about $200 billion, or 13% less than a year ago.

Cargill (estimated $110 billion sales) appears atop our list for the eighth time in the past decade. The 10 biggest companies accounted for $419 billion in goods and services, or 3% of the nation's current GDP. As for performance, annual sales growth for the top 10 slightly lagged the rest of the list, falling an average 3.4% vs. a 2.5% decline, respectively. Sales for the S&P 500 were down 1.8% on average through the end of the latest fiscal year.

There were but two new additions to our list to relinquish their stock market tickers; vitamin and supplement shop NBTY(No. 147), which was taken private by The Carlyle Group, and fast-food chain Burger King (No. 170) bought by 3G Capital. Each October 2010 transaction was for $4 billion.

On the reverse side, Bain Capital Partners and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. have filed to take giant hospital chain HCA (No. 4) public, four years after they bought it for $33 billion. Baby product and toy retailer Toys "R" Us (No.16) has also announced plans to go public but are holding off at least until 2011, when they hope the market will be more hospitable to IPOs. A total of seven companies have filed to go public with the SEC but have yet to pull the trigger.

Researcher: Sarah Reibstein

Programmer: Carl Subick

Design: Kai Hecker

Most of the companies on our list have no plans to change their private status. Many businesses like the freedom from quarterly earning expectations and reduced obligations to Sarbanes-Oxley reporting requirements. (Private companies with publicly traded debt must file financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)

In addition to our $2 billion revenue requirement, the companies on our list have either too few shareholders to be required to file financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or have shares whose ownership is restricted to some group, such as employees or family members. We exclude foreign companies, companies that don't pay income tax (like Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority), mutually owned companies (like State Farm Insurance), cooperatives ( like Central Grocers), companies with fewer than 100 employees, and companies that are more than 50% owned by another public, private or foreign company. We also leave out companies whose primary business is auto dealerships or real estate investment and/or management.